Submission deadline is Friday, February 16, 2018, at 4 p.m. Open to Highline students only.

The contest is a prelude to Highline College’s celebration of National Poetry Month, April 2018. Each poem will be displayed on a broadside in the Highline Library’s Exhibit and Art Gallery. Contest winners and finalists will have their broadsides hang alongside nationally recognized poets.

Winners will receive a copy of their broadside. Another copy will be part of Highline’s permanent collection. Poets will also have the chance to read their work during a reception in the gallery in April.

Prizes

First: $200

Second: $150

Third: $100

Finalists (seven):$75 each

What Is a Broadside?

Broadsides are loosely defined as single sheets of paper printed on one side. They were the most diverse form of brief, single-occasion publishing before the Civil War.

Although broadsides were first introduced in England, they became a prime means of communication in the United States, often posted in the town square.

Advertisements, song lyrics, commentaries, cartoons, and poems were printed and posted in towns across the nation.

Later, Harlem Renaissance, Concrete, and Beat writers claimed the broadside as a below-the-radar way to get their words out onto the streets.